Newsless for 9 days

Thameera asked me “why you need news at all?” and shared this post on how I can go newsless.

I thought it is not possible, because I thought I need to know what is happening.

But then I realised most of the news I consume is not healthy for my sanity and have nothing to do with my circle of influence. They are some manufactured pieces of stories to keep my attention from real stuff that I can make a change.

It was time for a strict diet.

I unfollowed all media twitter accounts. Did same for Facebook media pages.

There were friends who were sharing news content too frequently. I ‘muted’ them on twitter, and unfollowed on FB, so that their posts will not get on my feed. But I am still following them on twitter and still friends of Facebook. No hard feelings, just that I am on a strict diet for a while.

Signed off from all news portals I have subscribed to.

It’s now 9 days. Here’s what has happened.

I was used to check social media and click on links that ushered me to news sites early in my day. Now, because I am on strict diet, and I had to form a new habit, I turned to meditation early in the morning. I would get up, and meditate after a cup of tea. Mind was all over the place. But I knew how to sit still and just watch the breath, because I have been doing it for a long time. Yet somewhere down the line, that habit of meditating first thing in the morning, gathered dust. 30 minutes of meditation activated that habit, and I am so glad.

Then I would write my journal to get my agitated thoughts out of my system, or if my thought process is refined, I would just open a word document and punch on keyboard to create a blog post. Just like this one. And you can see I am still not on internet. So that is 15 minutes of writing.

Then my mind is settled and ready for work. I take the most important ( usually the hardest) task in my to do list and do it for 15 minutes. Usually it is a simple mind map to gather my thoughts, an email or a report. So, 15 minutes of the most important task.

During the day in breaks between work, instead of social media snacks, now I consume books. Real books, not e-books. I finished reading a fiction. This was after a very long time, I mean, last time I completed a fiction in straight go was more than 2 years back. That felt really good.

I cannot explain the soothing peacefulness I experience, because it is simply beyond words.